Friday, November 11, 2011

I think this month with exams happening has made me realize that school this semester is almost over, but it hadn't really hit me that I am going really soon. Don't get me wrong I am definitely excited to go home and see Scott, my family, and my amazing friends, but leaving here is going to be tough. Tomorrow Val, who I have hung out with a ton while here, is going home and it just makes me realize that I too will be leaving soon. Val is luckily from South Dakota (which I never thought I would say someone living there is lucky) so I will get to see her while I'm home for sure. Megan, a girl on my floor, also went home today and thank goodness she'll be back to hang out but still to see her leave was rough because we got close throughout the semester.

Things I WILL miss in Australia...
*the amazing people at Menzies and especially A1
*the delicious sticky date pudding (that I will ATTEMPT to make when I get home)
*the kangaroos, koalas, and wombats
*having a common room to hang out with so many amazing people
*the positive attitudes of most people in Australia
*the amusement of my American accent
*the beautiful cities and beaches
*the public transport...its nice to go anywhere in the city as an international without a car
*Tim-Tams
*dressing up for so many events
*having so many amazing social events
*long conversations with the girls on the A1 staircase
*Queen Victoria Market

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

This past weekend I went to hang out with a friend that I met in a very round-about way. My mom actually works with her aunt and her aunt gave her my email and ta-da we were friends. Sounds crazy but sometimes you just need to go with the flow and in the process you meet amazing people.

I took the train out to Oakleigh where I met Meg and her friend Margherita. We first went to the largest shopping center in Victoria and it honestly was close to the size of Mall of America or at least it seemed like it. We enjoyed shopping and looking at all of the shops along with eating delicious cupcakes. We couldn't decide on one flavor each so we decided to each get one and split each 3-way and share. We got vanilla strawberry, sticky date pudding, and red velvet. All three were really good but it was a unanimous decision that the sticky date cupcake won. I find it strange because their puddings here are kind of like cake, which is different but so good! They have actually never seen or heard of our pudding and as they ask me what it is, I find it really hard to explain. As they explained it, apparently they love their puddings and we love our pies, which they don't really have.

The whole purpose of the shopping trip was to find a dress for the Stakes Day Races on Saturday, so yes we definitely looked around for more, but dresses and fascinators. What is a fascinator you might ask...well it is a crazy thing women wear on their heads at the nice races for a fashion statement. I had a hard time convincing myself to buy one of the silly things but they are a must have. I ended up finding a white one that didn't look completely ridiculous and matched my dress perfectly. After being exhausted by an afternoon of shopping we went back to Meg's house where her parents prepared a nice BBQ. They love their BBQs here , which is definitely okay by me. :)

On Saturday, we woke up bright and early to get ready for the races. Margherita's family was picking us up around 9am, which meant we got up at 8am...that's REALLY early for me...I am dreading the real world where that happens everyday, just earlier. Anyway, we headed to the races where we set up our blankets and chairs for the day. The atmosphere was amazing! I went to the Packy Races earlier in the semester, but this was huge compared to that. Not to mention we had perfect sunny weather the entire day, which is extremely unusual for Melbourne. I bet on a few horses throughout the day and won once, but didn't end up with any bit of a profit. O well...

The police were on high patrol that day for those crazy alcoholics and they were busting every clever idea that people had to hide their alcohol, I was honestly entertained by the ways they were finding stuff. We had some but because we were with parents we just walked away every time they were coming close and they didn't even do a thorough search it was amazing. Overall, the day was great, the people were fun, and the weather was perfect.

On Sunday the weather was supposed to be nice, but leave it to Melbourne to ruin that. So, even though we were all dressed in our swimming suits we had to make alternative plans and cancel the beach. We ended up going to this really pretty lookout point where you could see all of Melbourne and then to lunch at this place with amazing food, but HORRIBLE service. See, servers here don't work for tips but usually they are still decent, here they were the worse I have ever experienced in my life. However, like I said the food was amazing so that made up for it. On the way home we took a pit stop at this delicious bakery one of their friend's parents owned and it was so good!! I got a banana cake thing and it was amazing. But before enjoying that we went to see the train yard where Puffing Billy, an old steam train, was passing and also by great chance...Thomas the Tank Engine came to town! So we went and took pictures with the trains and pretended we were kids for about 15 minutes. :)

That evening I headed home being that I have exams this week and next and needed to crack down on studying. It is hard because all of my classes come back as pass/ fail and I am passing all of mine right now with no problem. So my focus factor = 0 if not in the negatives. Finance is my big one worth 70% of my grade, so I will continue to study for that tomorrow and hopefully do well on that in order to pass. :) The other three are next week so I will focus on those after I finish lovely finance. Off to bed! Love and miss you all a lot, but no worries I will see you this month!! AH! How crazy! :) Xx